Dinner Questions

At a recent show, judges on the show panel attended dinner together — organized by our social chairperson nonpareil, Christie Martinez. At the dinner, the discussions centered around two primary questions: 

What is the best dog you have ever seen, and what was your best judging assignment? 

It was an interesting discussion, and it has led me to ask YOU some questions. 

Interestingly, with the exception of a couple of judges who stated that their Westminster Kennel Club assignment was their best one, it was almost unanimous that judging national specialties were the best assignments. I have had the privilege of judging national specialties for quite a few breeds, and each and every one is a real honor. Of course, judging the national specialty for my own breed(s) was my absolute favorite assignment. I also said that when I was (much) younger and lived in New York, I attended every Westminster Kennel Club show, and ran to watch the Terriers, because that is where I thought the true, consistent quality was. There are a number of all-breed shows that are absolute pleasures to judge, but for people who care deeply about their breed, national specialties top the list. 

As for the best dog I have ever seen — or had my hands on — I had to choose two. One has led to a lifetime friendship. By chance, I ran across the website for Gwyndara Irish Setters in Australia, and instantly fell in love with Grand Champion Gwyndara Total Eclipse (“Clipper”). Clipper’s show career speaks for itself and he attained his Grand Champion title easily being a multiple Best in Show winner, specialty BIS winner, Royal BOB and challenge winner. He was Australia’s #1 Irish Setter in 2003 (Ozdog System) and won the Irish Setter Club of Victoria Dog of the Year award for four years (2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004). (Note: achieving a grand champion title is much more difficult in Australia — and many other countries — than it is here.)

It was a real pleasure for me to meet Clipper and another great Gwyndara Irish Setter — Ch. Gwyndara Montpelier (Monty) — in their later years when I visited Leeanne and Trevor Jones while on my first judging assignment in Australia. 

 I have had the pleasure of judging (and showing) some wonderful dogs during my 50-plus-year judging career, and I can name a few, but one stands out in my mind: Ch. Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee. “Stump” — as he was known — had perhaps the most magnificent front-end assembly I have ever had my hands on. According toWikipedia, Ch. Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee (December 1, 1998 – September 25, 2012), better known as Stump, was a male Sussex Spaniel who won Best in Show at the 2009 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Stump was the first of his breed to win that honor and, at 10 years old, the oldest dog ever to win the prize. He also won the Sporting Group at Westminster in 2004, the first such victory for his breed, and amassed 51 Best in Show awards throughout his career. One of his owners described him as "the most famous Sussex (Spaniel) that has ever lived.” 

Shelly and I have also had the privilege of having some very wonderful dogs as part of our family, including Gifford, Dawson, Gatsby, Streamer, Sonnet and others. Each dog had his or her own strengths and personality, and each one contributed all its love to our lives. 

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I have also been asked who I think is the best professional handler. It would not be proper for me to point to any one handler in the present, but I will say there are quite a few handlers — both professional and owner-handlers — who do a wonderful job with the dogs they present. I will say, however, that the keys for a good handler are soft hands, slow, careful movements, and “stacking” and moving each breed as it should be shown — not showing or grooming each breed the same way. In my day we were also blessed with some great handlers such as Bob and Jane Forsyth, Bill Trainor, Laddie Carswell, Peter Green, Michael Canalizo, George Alston and others. The key for all very good handlers is to show the strengths of your dog and not yourself.

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Shelly asked me an interesting question that I would like to share with you: 

“How are a judge’s decisions affected by his or her past experiences as a breeder or handler and the dogs he or she bred or showed?” 

Although my first Irish Setter was a somewhat large bitch, the first “show dog” I had was an Irish Setter bitch at the smallish end of the standard. Because of this, when I started judging, many people assumed this was the style of Irish I would be looking for. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I was — and am — determined to judge to the standard, and so size meant very little to me as long as it was within the breed parameters. I don’t do it to an excess, but I will measure a breed that has a height DQ if it looks as if one of the entries is pushing the limits. Sometimes a judge will measure a dog that he likes — and is considering as the winner — to show that he is within the standard. I have even done this in the group.

So, if you were a judge, and your breed seemed to consistently have weak rears, how would you judge your breed? As a matter of fact, I attended a seminar of one of these breeds in which a breeder actually said, “Down and back is not important in our breed.” Would you accept weak rears as something that just exists in your breed, or would you be very hard on dogs with bad rears? 

Moving to the other end of the dog, what if your standard says something like “The forelegs reach well ahead as if to pull in the ground without giving the appearance of a hackney gait,” and yet some judges were rewarding dogs with up and down front movement that caused their beautiful coat to fly around and look amazing? How would you judge that breed?

Let’s make it more difficult. What if you were judging a breed that says, “The overall appearance is casual and tousled. The rough, unrefined outline and tousled appearance of this rustic hunting hound is essential. Any sculpting, clipping, scissoring or shaping of the coat is contrary to … breed type. The …  coat should be clean, neatened as necessary, but always remain casually disarrayed. Any deviation from the ideal described here and in the General Appearance Section of the official standard should be penalized to the extent of the deviation.” 

So, what if you had a wonderful breed specimen in front of you, but it certainly appeared to have been sculpted beyond what the standard asks for? Do you reward its quality, believing that the grooming is man-made and not something wrong with the dog? Or do you ignore a very good breed example because of the grooming? How much — for any breed — would you consider grooming as a judge? What if the grooming detracted from what you believed the breed should look like? Consider that if you put up a dog of lesser quality, the ring-side experts will assume you don’t know what you are doing, and will use their internet muscles to excoriate you. (Have to have a thick skin to be a judge.)

The discussion on coat and trimming needs to take another step. If a dog is groomed incorrectly — coat stripped too much or too short or even just wrong — how is a judge supposed to determine if the coat is able to do its job? The coat — amount, type, length, etc. — is designed for a specific purpose on each breed, and if the correct length of coat is not there, how can a judge determine if it is correct? For example, how often does a judge feel — and consider — the coat on a Beagle? The coat should be harsh for protection — not soft from being clipped or stripped too much. Shouldn’t that have something to do with determining if the dog meets his standard?

When I was an AKC assistant handler, I worked at a Pointer-Labrador kennel. I have shown a great many of each of these breeds and have worked with them in the field dozens of times. There is a definite breed type emblazoned in my brain. But what if a Pointer or Labrador comes into my ring that doesn’t fit my image of the breed. Can I put that aside and just judge the dog in front of me? I hope so, and I believe I have done so. 

What if you had shown — and loved — an excellent representative of a breed, and he was recognized by many judges — winning a national specialty, many groups, Best in Show, and on and on. Would you be able to cast the image of this dog aside when others of the breed came into the ring, and they were nothing like what you had shown? Should you? 

How about the other side of this discussion? If a dog came into your ring and you knew from experience that this breed was weak in an area — let’s say head planes or rear movement — and this dog was strong in that area, should you not reward that? Isn’t this telling the breeders that this is correct, and what they should strive for?

We all come to a dog show with already built-in perceptions and assumptions. Indeed, we have this in everyday life. It is how you handle your prior concepts that determines your actions. Above all, we must remember that we are judging the dogs in front of us — on the day — as compared to the breed standard. Indeed, there have been times that I have put up a dog that wasn’t particularly my style of dog, but I knew it conformed to the standard. I am sure other judges have done this also. Would you? Isn’t that what we are supposed to do?

What do you think?